HLTC22

Basic concepts in gerontology

● Life span
○ The fixed finite maximum amount of time a species can live for
■ Examples:
● Fly: max life approx. 30 days
● Human: max life span approx. 120 years
● Aging
○ Is a personal and social process
■ Chronological age
● The number of years that a person has been alive
○ The age on personal medical records, driver license
■ Biological age
● Refers to how old a person feels, seems to be, or functions
○ Agism is prejoudous of older people
● Life expectancy
○ A measure of the average time a person (or any organism) is expected to live
○ Can be based on
■ Year of birth
■ Current age
■ Other demographic factors
● Gerontology
○ The study of aging
Lecture 2
Demography of Aging & Social Structures: a Canadian and global perspective
● What 3 demographic forces influence population growth?
○ Fertility rates
■ The average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime
○ Mortality rates
○ Immigration
Mortality Rates
● A measure of the number of deaths in a given population over a specified time period
● Vs. morbidity = the condition of being ill, diseased, or unhealthy
Age Pyramids
● Big at the bottom where there are children aged 0-4 but slowly decreases as it goes up
Lecture 3
Theory serves at least 3 critical purposes in research on aging:
● To guide research questions and hypotheses
● To help explain research findings
● To inform interventions to solve aging-related problems
Areas of study in gerontology
● Biomedicine
● Psychosocial studies
● Socioeconomic-environmental studies
Micro
● Interpretive
○ Social construction
○ Social phenomenology
○ Ethnomethodology
○ Social exchange
● Functionalist
○ Structural functionalism
○ Age stratification
○ Life-course
○ Disengagement
○ Continuity
○ Activity
○ Modernization
Macro
● Conflict
○ Political economy
○ Feminist perspective
○ Moral economy
Social Construction
● Concerned with the ways we think about and use categories to structure our experience
and analysis of the world
● Ex.
○ Photo of two newborns one wearing pink and other blue but trying to figure out
which is a girl or a boy
○ Associating color with a gender
Is age a social construct?
● There can be 2 ages
○ One that is your actual age that on a birthday changes
○ Also, age, where you may feel younger than you, are or older than what you are
Structural functionalism
● Parts of society are organs that work toward the proper functioning of the body as a
whole
Life Course Perspective
● Human development is viewed across the life span
● Childhood, adolescence, and adulthood are continuous processes of change
 ● Individuals progress within culturally defined roles and across different age-graded
transitions
○ Trajectories- pathways or long term patterns of development (e.g. educational or
work trajectories)
○ Transitions- short term changes in social roles (e.g. promotion, divorce,
retirement)
What is successful aging?
● Minimize risk of disease and disability
● Continue engagement with life
● Maintain physical and cognitive function
Lecture 4
The Aging Body
● Personal health and illness
○ The skin
○ The sensory system
○ The respiratory system
Why does our skin wrinkle?
● The outer layer of skin becomes thinner through cell loss
● Collagen fibers lose flexibility
● Elastin fibers in the middle layer lose their ability to keep the skin taut
● The underlying layer of fat diminishes
Age-related changes
● Changes in hair follicles
● Wrinkles
● Decreased protection from the sun
● Decreased ability to respond to allergic stimuli
● More likely to bruise and tear
● Predisposition to hypothermia and hyperthermia
● Decreased sensitivity to touch
● Lower antigen sensitivity
● More vulnerable to high temperatures
The Sensory System
● Five senses
○ Sight
○ Hearing
○ Taste
○ Touch
○ Smell

Vision
 ● Age-related changes
○ Dry eyes
○ Cornea less sensitive
○ Pupil may react more slowly
○ Less able to tolerate glare
○ Trouble adapting to light
○ Eye muscles become less able to fully rotate the eye
● Eye disorders common among older adults
○ Cataracts
■ A cataract is a clouding of the normally clear lens of your eye
○ Glaucoma
■ Glaucoma refers to a group of disorders that lead to damage to the optic
nerve
○ Macular degeneration
■ Muscular degeneration causes decreased vision and possible loss of
central vision
○ Diabetic hypertensive retinopathy
■ Diabetic retinopathy is damage to the eye’s retina that occurs with
long-term diabetes
The Respiratory System
● Age-related changes
○ Decrease in cough reflex
○ Reduced ability of airways to clean themselves and fight infection
○ Changes in the respiratory system can make older adults more vulnerable to
illness
● Disease-related changes
○ Lung cancer
■ Leading cause of cancer death in Canada
● More Canadian women die of lung cancer than of breast cancer
■ Signs and symptoms of lung cancer typically occur only when the disease
is advance
■ Cigarette smoke
● Contains over 4800 chemicals
○ 69 of which are known to cause cancer
○ Pneumonia
■ Inflammation of the lungs that usually caused by infection
● Aspiration pneumonia
○ Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
■ General term for several diseases of the respiratory tract
○ Tuberculosis
● Promoting optimal aging
○ Exercise
○ Avoid smoking
○ Diet